Self-Driving Trucks Begin Real-World Tests on Ohio's Highways (cbsnews.com) 178
An anonymous reader writes:
"A vehicle from self-driving truck maker Otto will travel a 35-mile stretch of U.S. Route 33 on Monday in central Ohio..." reports the Associated Press. The truck "will travel in regular traffic, and a driver in the truck will be positioned to intervene should anything go awry, Department of Transportation spokesman Matt Bruning said Friday, adding that 'safety is obviously No. 1.'"
Ohio sees this route as "a corridor where new technologies can be safely tested in real-life traffic, aided by a fiber-optic cable network and sensor systems slated for installation next year" -- although next week the truck will also start driving on the Ohio Turnpike.
Ohio sees this route as "a corridor where new technologies can be safely tested in real-life traffic, aided by a fiber-optic cable network and sensor systems slated for installation next year" -- although next week the truck will also start driving on the Ohio Turnpike.
The perfect platform for this is: (Score:1)
The system we already have where vehicles travel only on a very constrained path and little other traffic is allowed.
All traffic is under the control of a central authority too.
-- Trains --
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That's because the truck driver is too busy murdering prostitutes
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You build the distribution hub off a railroad spur. That's a no-brainer.
Local deliveries (in-town driving) will be done by smaller, human-driven trucks.
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So much of a no brainer that everyone has already figured out that it's massively more expensive and less flexible than using trucks?
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Trucking is massively tax-payer subsidized. Railroads own the land their rails run on, pay taxes on that land, and pay 100% of maintenance cost of the rail infrastructure (tracks, bridges, etc). Trucks pay a gas tax... which goes toward that massively subsidized interstate highway system and network of state and local highways. That gas tax does not cover the entire cost of the infrastructure that they use. If tolls were high enough to actually cover the cost of highway construction and maintenance, or if r
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Unless it's gone through a switch it's on the track it started on. A train has only one degree of freedom - distance along. You can determine that with machine-readable mileposts.
GPS is the wrong solution here.
Still not ready for cities (Score:5, Insightful)
On the bright side thus should employ a few tens of thousands to perhaps even 50k skilled H1-B workers. If anyone can think of how these people will find employment I'd be interested to know as I can't seem to think of how it is gonna happen.
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Since the self driving tech for trucks is at least an order of magnitude or two simpler for fair weather freeway driving than real city driving it's likely it will be implemented there first. You could probably cut the workforce in half or even more by employing drivers only at depots located next to freeways to ferry them the last mile or two within the city.
The government isn't going to let fully automated trucks run around with nobody to watch them any time soon, but they will slip these features into trucks to reduce driver fatigue. The driver is there to watch the truck, and the truck will also watch the driver and wake them up if they're passing out — but also not let them cream anyone. When the trucks can manage a good safety record with babysitters, then they'll be allowed to run around on their own.
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Since the self driving tech for trucks is at least an order of magnitude or two simpler for fair weather freeway driving than real city driving it's likely it will be implemented there first. You could probably cut the workforce in half or even more by employing drivers only at depots located next to freeways to ferry them the last mile or two within the city.
The government isn't going to let fully automated trucks run around with nobody to watch them any time soon, but they will slip these features into trucks to reduce driver fatigue. The driver is there to watch the truck, and the truck will also watch the driver and wake them up if they're passing out — but also not let them cream anyone. When the trucks can manage a good safety record with babysitters, then they'll be allowed to run around on their own.
You may be thinking too sanely. If the incoming administration is as hell bent on bottom lines and profit as any good CEO is this will be a reality in 4 years.
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You may be thinking too sanely. If the incoming administration is as hell bent on bottom lines and profit as any good CEO is this will be a reality in 4 years.
The company closest to having a practical self-driving big rig is probably Mercedes, which we know here as Freightliner. His Trumpness has not exactly been overflowing with love for the auto industry in general, either. None of them are really ready to have a class V OTR truck at this time, anyway. They're only ready to do more development in the real world.
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Haven't you heard? There's a new sheriff in town and his badge has a six-pointed star. Except he doesn't wear the badge, you do. Because you're a truck driver and your days are numbered.
We just don't need you any more. Sorry, not sorry. You can look for a job in the service sector, but only if you happen to look like a Slovenian hooker.
Not so hasty (Score:2)
If the incoming administration is as hell bent on bottom lines and profit as any good CEO is this will be a reality in 4 years.
It's not like we elected Clinton after all. We managed to elect someone substantially less Ferengi.
The truckers are the kind of people who voted for Trump so he would be less inclined to hasty adoption of tech to replace truck drivers.
Re:Not so hasty (Score:5, Insightful)
Except trump could give a crap about those people now. They served their purpose. In his world it is definitely what are you going to do for me tomorrow.
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The driver is there to watch the truck, and the truck will also watch the driver and wake them up if they're passing out
Don't forget the dog. You'll always need the dog in these automated systems.
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The government isn't going to let fully automated trucks run around with nobody to watch them any time soon, but they will slip these features into trucks to reduce driver fatigue. The driver is there to watch the truck, and the truck will also watch the driver and wake them up if they're passing out â" but also not let them cream anyone. When the trucks can manage a good safety record with babysitters, then they'll be allowed to run around on their own.
Have you ever tried to be a driving instructor? You are far more stressed than if you're driving yourself, because you never know when the pupil doesn't react or does something unexpected. If they don't trust it, they're going to turn it off. If they do trust it, the truck will drive itself. Sure they might help if it gets stuck, but sitting there ready to intervene at any moment? No way. So I'm thinking the safety record with babysitters is going to be the same as the safety record without babysitters, it
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Too optimistic. The accident rate for trucks is very low, about 0.15 fatalities per 100 million miles traveled (source: here [dot.gov]). We will need a lot of trucks and a lot of time on that 35 mile stretch. Quick calculations, at 1000 trucks per day, 24/7, this will take 100 years.
Now how it actually works (Score:5, Insightful)
You completely misunderstand how things actually work. A few kids out of 350 million people get shot by some crazy idiot who should never have been on the streets, "we need new gun laws"; one child gets run over, "we need to replace drivers"; a few aircraft are found to have vulnerable cockpits, and no one can ever get on a plane again without ridiculous, expensive security theater (as opposed to actually solving the problem by hardening the cockpits, a one-time cost that doesn't screw your liberties over.) Etc.
Laws aren't a product of sane, reasonable thinking due to science and statistics. Laws are all about pandering, and pandering depends on getting the mommies to feel protective. All it takes is a corporate agenda -- some profit-making scheme -- to push the legislators where they need to go.
Basically, for love of money and re-election, congress creates panics to push a particular corporate agenda; that works, and the corporations get their way, the congresscritters get re-elected, and all is well with the world. From their lofty perspective, anyway.
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" A few kids out of 350 million people get shot by some crazy idiot who should never have been on the streets, "we need new gun laws""
What new gun laws were passed because of the Sandy Hook slaughter?
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" A few kids out of 350 million people get shot by some crazy idiot who should never have been on the streets, "we need new gun laws""
What new gun laws were passed because of the Sandy Hook slaughter?
Try reading the post. He didn't say laws got passed, he said that lot of people, including the POTUS, wept and begged for massive new "gun control" laws.
Because something bad but really rare happened, we have to screw everyone else over. The parent made a crystal clear analysis of the hysteria that seems to always follow very rare events.
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Re: Still not ready for cities (Score:3)
...but also not let them cream anyone
The lot lizards'll have a thing or two to say about that...
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The government isn't going to let fully automated trucks run around with nobody to watch them any time soon
Not true. The DoT is already drafting new regulations to cover driverless vehicles. They will require significant testing and evaluation, but the self-driving systems will quickly prove themselves safer than human drivers and will be approved quickly. Especially for highway-only driving.
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I agree that the tech isn't yet ready for cities, but the same reason it isn't ready for cities is a reason to worry about its implementation on highways.
Why is the tech not ready for cities? Because city driving has too much unpredictable stuff going on -- unpredictable lane changes, pedestrians, cyclists, construction zones, delivery trucks double-parked, the random guy holding up a hand while a city vehicle maneuvers around, etc. Highway driving is 97% boring "stay in your lane, keep relatively const
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Probably will bankrupt every truck stop along major freeways costing another 200k jobs.
The trucks will still need to be fueled for the long trips, so fueling stops will still be needed, but the food, showers, and restaurants won't be needed as much.
Of course, depending upon technology level, a driver may be needed for the highway exit-fuel-onramp legs until the technology level is ready for the trucks to find fuel stops and refuel successfully.
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How long before there are in-trip refueling trucks? After all, there's no need to delay your valuable cargo if there's no driver.
The automated refueler will just pull in front, stick a pipe out the back end, and pump a load of fuel (which will initially still be diesel, but will eventually be an electric charge dumped from a supercapacitor bank into the rolling truck. Humans have a hard time managing the precise speeds needed, self-driving trucks will not.
The tech is going to be level 5 very, very quickly
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If by "very quickly" you mean within the next 3000 years.
Re:Still not ready for cities (Score:4, Interesting)
You're going to find this technology used for platooning long before it is used for unattended driving.
There were already platooning tests in Europe earlier this year where trucks drove autonomously from all over in Europe and met in Spain without a single hitch. Expect to see this soon.
10x more job loss than coal (Score:5, Insightful)
In 2014 there were 1.8 million truck drivers. [bls.gov] Average pay was $40K. [bls.gov] That's damn good money for a job that doesn't even require a high school education.
Those people are fuuuuuucked. More fucked than any other industry. More fucked than buggy-whip makers. More fucked than coal miners. In 1980 there were only 230,000 coal miners. Over the last 30 years that's dropped by about 150,000 jobs. But once the they get a working retrofit kit for trucks that are already on the road, the trucking industry is going to shed 90% of their drivers in less than decade.
And all the ancillary businesses that depend on truckers, like truckstop restaurants and convenience stores, even hookers, they are are fucked too.
These guys are going to react very poorly to this inevitable future. If Trump's election scared you, get ready from somebody 10x worse when this plays out.
Re:10x more job loss than coal (Score:5, Funny)
"even hookers, they are are fucked too." Surely not.
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But they won't lose all their jobs at once. First commercially available self driving trucks will appear no earlier than 2020. They'll probably only be certified for highway driving when the weather is fine. They will be expensive and they'll be used by a few companies in pilot projects. They won't replace the driver but extend the hours while the vehicle is moving - the ex-driver can sleep while the truck is driving itself on the interstate.
Slowly they become popular across big rigs but for a long time the
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This.
A lot of their job involves unloading and carting stuff around. It's going to be a long time before a robot can haul a pallet load of stuff in a service entrance, maneuver around crap piled in a warehouse and deliver it where it belongs. And then there's the stairs ....
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It's the other end of the local deliveries I'm thinking about. The truck might be loaded at a robotic facility. But it will be unloaded at dozens of local businesses, each which have strange hallways, cramped kitchen entrances, piles of crap blocking aisles, etc.
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Maybe they can get jobs as grief counselors for Hillary voters. It's a growth industry without limit!
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I'm predicting no more than an initial 30% loss once the driving is fully automate
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> There are myriad tasks truckers take care of besides driving the truck
I expect we will see caravans. Where there are 10+ trucks in a row, the first truck will have a human to handle all the misc duties and to take over the driving when conditions deviate from the norm. All the other trucks will just "lock on" to the truck in front of them much like cruise-control in luxury cars already does today.
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No one needs to wait.. Have you ever driven on a interstate outside of a city center?
Like 1/3 of the traffic, at least here in the Midwest, is already trucks. All they need to do is get on the interstate and within a few miles will be able to join a caravan.
Might start with two trucks, but within a few dozen miles a couple more trucks will join, etc.
There is no need for them to be going to the 'same place', they just need to be moving along the same road.
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Average pay was $40K. That's damn good money for a job that doesn't even require a high school education.
Good money for a delivery van in the city. Not so good if you are working long-haul - long hours away from home & family.
In a wealthy country like the US, $40k ought to be the minimum full-time wage, in a job where you need reliable safety-conscious people.
And why should "stupid" people be treated as an underclass and paid badly? Might as well start paying people according to their height or skin colour.
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"No one in their right mind would do any highly skilled job/career if there was not a (significant) pay difference. "
"I would never do what I am doing if it paid anywhere near the same as "stupid" people jobs."
And no one suggested that!
Just because people think janitors deserve to live a decent life too does not mean that people are saying you shouldn't!
"their job is of lesser significance and importance and can be done by anyone"
And I say to that.. Wrong!
They may be able to be done by 'anyone' but they can
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There's always going to be a requirement for someone to hold down the Driver Safety Device [wikipedia.org]
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More fucked than buggy-whip makers.
- hold on, a large number of the truckers are owner-operators, you are talking about people who are themselves drivers and they own (lease/finance/own) their vehicle and they find their jobs on job boards and such. So what you saying is that the drivers are fucked because they will install devices into their trucks that will drive the trucks for them. These are now people who will be able to drive 24/7 as opposed to being kept from driving by their logbooks (when they are supposed to take their breaks).
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Automation will drive down pricing and this means increasing competition and it does favour capital, so yes, the ones with the foresight to grow their fleet will win and the ones who do not understand the trend will lose their driving gig, but it means that people with more business sense will survive in this business, which is a great thing for everybody, the economy wins with much lower delivery costs. The long distance drivers will be able to do much more driving of the trucks within cities because many
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Maybe they should be pissed at the right people. The government that adds regulations and taxes on top of regulations and taxes. In 2017 the new HOS (Hours Of Service) laws are coming into effect in the USA. So it will become much more expensive to have a person driving a truck on the highway. The equipment costs skyrocket for the truck owners and at the same time the driving costs will as well with fewer driving hours. All this so that the government can control and oppress people some more. Of cou
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Pfff. Until they make an autonomous vehicle that can answer a Trolley Problem, drivers aren't going anywhere.
Re: 10x more job loss than coal (Score:5, Insightful)
Not everyone can get a PhD or Master's degree. You have to allow for the "stupid" people unless you want to promote extermination, which makes you an even bigger idiot than your comment makes you out to be.
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You have to allow for the "stupid" people unless you want to promote extermination
If you are willing to be patient, then extermination is not necessary. Sterilization is enough.
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That's just plain BS. Aside from the other poster's quip about the South, there's an enormous number of American women these days who are basically sugar mommies for unemployed and underemployed men. There's even a stereotype about these women buying cellphones for these men (and paying their cellular bills).
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Better counterpoint: all of human history.
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You imply "PhD" and "stupid" are mutually exclusive. Clearly you have never worked with PhDs.
mod up.
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You imply "PhD" and "stupid" are mutually exclusive. Clearly you have never worked with PhDs.
mod up.
GGP clearly meant "stupid" as in "not able to" or "not having any desire to" get a PhD.
PhD degree is not even a salary-optimal path. A good MS degree with 5+ years experience is likely to lead to a much more lucrative salary.
Re: 10x more job loss than coal (Score:5, Insightful)
We'll have the rich, the poor, and little in between.
Perhaps. But thanks to technology, today even the poor live better than kings did a few centuries ago.
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We'll have the rich, the poor, and little in between.
Perhaps. But thanks to technology, today even the poor live better than kings did a few centuries ago.
People keep trotting this out...
Sure, I am not likely to die of polio, tuberculosis, flu, or black plague. Sure, my bed is more comfortable than any bed any king ever had. Yes, I can communicate with people anywhere on the planet in a moments notice. That shit is UTTERLY great. I love it; however....
A king never has to worry about where his next meal is coming from. A king never has to worry about whether or not his children will have a home tomorrow (well, he may worry that they will get executed in the ne
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(check out the stats on hunger in America)
I did. Among the poor, obesity is a far bigger problem than hunger.
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For most of human history people lived in small cooperative bands. there was only a small amount of social inequality. The productivity of the human race has increased greatly. No one need be hungry or live in poverty. The hunger and poverty are political choices bad choices at that. To all that think killing half the human race is a solution to anything I say you are monsters. There are so many things that do not require a high IQ and all human life must be respected.
Re: 10x more job loss than coal (Score:1)
Personally I think we should just roll out communism for the lower and middle class masses. Government issued home, uniform, access to autonomous ride sharing, food rations and a basic income. If you do it at scale you can do it with cost effectiveness.
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Personally I think we should just roll out communism for the lower and middle class masses.
The bottom quintile (20%) of households already get about 40% of their income from government transfer payments (SS, SSDI, SNAP, etc). As technology improves productivity and reduces prices, that percentage can easily increase.
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Only so long as the ones in the higher quintiles are willing to pay more.
As robots take over, and productivity increases, returns on capital will soar, and the top quintile will pay plenty of additional tax even if rates stay the same.
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"the top quintile will pay plenty of additional tax even if rates stay the same"
I wouldn't bet on that. Greed knows no boundaries and I'm convinced the wealthy will find ways to pay as little as possible no matter how much they make.
...a driver in the truck... (Score:2)
Obviously not a union member.
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Wow, you came here just use the term "Skynet". Very insightful, very insightful.
Yes (Score:1)
I, for one, welcome our new self-driving truck overlords.
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I, for one, welcome our new self-driving truck overlords.
Does this remind anyone else of that old Stephen King short story Trucks [wikipedia.org]?
Better get your gas-pumpin'-hand warmed up...
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The movie "Trucks" - the BAD version of "Maximum Overdrive".
Can't believe they made this story into a movie, much less TWO movies.
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The movie "Trucks" - the BAD version of "Maximum Overdrive".
Can't believe they made this story into a movie, much less TWO movies.
FYI, Books != Movies (except maybe for Harry Potter, which probably explains why I couldn't stand the books)
I did mean the short story, because I have not watched either movie. Its a classic King short story: spine-shivering, imagination-firing and not necessarily ending well for the protagonists.
Reading is fun! You should try it some day! ;-D
"MAGA" (Score:3)
... and replacing truckers with bots they don't have to pay.
Re:"MAGA" (Score:4, Insightful)
He said he will get back jobs. Not that they would be middle class jobs. If the minimum wage in the US is made less than the minimum wage in China and unions are banned , companies will bring back factories. People who work these jobs will just have to get used to living 4 bunkbeds to a room and 6.5 day weeks to be able to afford food. The sick will just have to die as these jobs will not have medical coverage. Also the boss will not give time off to go vote so these workers will not vote out Trump next time around.
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or not have a job, not have enough to afford food, and just die.
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Look up cuckquean. Actual word.
Big changes coming to our truck stops (Score:2)
Are they prepared to be invaded by no-name autonomous Linux laptops, making their own way from cab to cab in the self-driving truck standby row, interfacing with trucks who are away from the watchful gaze of their corporate mainframes? Self-driving trucks going rogue and snarfing up flash drives full of ones and zeroes smuggled in from Mexico?
remote monitoring ability (Score:2)
Especially taxis, they should be remotely monitored. I am pretty sure they will need that unless they are cool with people puking or worse in the cab. I mean one person should be able to monitor 3 or 4 vehicles at the same time. Since this may incur a high cellular data cost, it can just send stills every 3 seconds uness realtime video conferencing is needed.
Trucks too should be remotely monitored.
35 miles? What amateurs! (Score:1)
You people in Ohio, do try to keep up with the rest of us. Don't come back until you can do something that even remotely demonstrates some skill.
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Truck Botnets, and Ransomeware galore...... (Score:2)
If you thought botnets of WebCams were bad, wait till you have botnets of hacked self driving vehicles. Sounds like something out of Stephen King!
And Ransomeware galore.
The mind boggles at what Organized Crime or Immigration 'Coyotes' can do with a fleet of hacked self driving vehicles.
Does no one else see this? I feel like Will Smith in 'i Robot', "Now we have Robots building robots. Wonderful!"
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The biggest campaigning error Clinton made was focusing too much on Trump's personal character and not enough countering the "outsiders took your jobs" angle that Trump used.
Automation is a bigger threat to blue-collar jobs than outsiders or allegedly bad trade deals, and her retraining plans were thus more rational.
In the end, people vote their pocket book more than candidate character. The election wasn't about pussy grabbing nor being dodgy with email, but job loss.
Trump made a powerful emotional appeal
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Trump attacked women, Muslims, Mexicans, short people, fat people, crippled people, etc. Thus, your logic fails here.
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If that were true, Trump would not have won.
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Perhaps, but maybe not a difference maker if both do it. A wash. It's like exaggerating, almost all politicians do it such that it's often not a difference maker.
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"Attacking your opponent's supporters is bloody stupid"
Doesn't seem to have hurt the GOP who've been doing that as long as I can remember and I remember when Nixon got elected
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The fact that you don't like it doesn't mean it isn't true. A LOT of Trump supporters are exactly those things. Just because Trump won doesn't make that just go away.
True, but the people who are like that know it and don't care or even are proud, while those that aren't are just going to be upset they are being poked with a stick by the other side which will just increase their resolve. While yelling such may be emotionally gratifying, it isn't going to help the cause any. Same goes for Republicans calling Democrats all sorts of names. Calling once side stereotypes just reinforces the non-stereotypes that the other side are the real stereotypes.
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The biggest campaigning error Clinton made was focusing too much on Trump's personal character and not enough countering the "outsiders took your jobs" angle that Trump used.
Automation is a bigger threat to blue-collar jobs than outsiders or allegedly bad trade deals, and her retraining plans were thus more rational.
In the end, people vote their pocket book more than candidate character. The election wasn't about pussy grabbing nor being dodgy with email, but job loss.
Trump made a powerful emotional appeal to turn back the clock, and Clinton needed to hammer home the message that those jobs are NOT coming back and that her retraining plans had a better chance helping jobs.
The "poorly educated" want villeins to rail against and quick easy fixes, not the cold hard truth and plans that require time and sacrifice. Trump gave them both with his blatant lies. The only way to beat Trump was to lie even more then him and its doubtful if that's even possible
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The party of personal responsibility doesn't do anything but suck corporate wang.
good thing this isn't France! (Score:2)
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FTFY
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Screw that. They are just "skills challenged". We'll just train them to be coders.
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To take a person used to a carefree life on the road and stick them in a cubicle. Thats cruel and unusual punishment
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To take a person used to a carefree life on the road and stick them in a cubicle. Thats cruel and unusual punishment
A carefree life of sitting in a glass and steel walled box, staring out a screen, unable to get out of your chair, unable to even take your hands off the wheel, for hours on end, even closing your eyes for 10 seconds could cause death. A trip to the bathroom costs 30 minutes and requires planing and a review of its impact on a successful project.
Re: Sad to see Trump supports this (Score:1)
You're in need of remedial reading lessons.
I never said progress was happening in those fields.
As a matter of fact the nepotism we see so often in artistic fields is a major cause of stagnation there too.
I am personally far less inclined to watch a movie if the offspring of a celebrity is in it. Hate that.
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You do realize we are importing people by the millions who, according to you, are intellectually incapable to cope in the modern workplace.
What do you propose we do about this?
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facial recognition cameras
One bearded hobo pretty much looks like every other one, plus many of the hipsters.
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and then the jail / prison will feed and board me + they have the DR that does a lot more then the ones at the ER do when you have no way to pay.